Secret Investor: RateSetter hit £2bn and both ThinCats and Funding Knight become FCA authorised for IFISAs

Last post: Aug 11, 2017

Having scaled back on wholesale lending, Ratesetter finally make it to the £2 billion lent mark… ThinCats and FundingKnight both get the green light to provide IFISAs after receiving Full Authorisation from the FCA… LendingCrowd offer £150 Cashback

Headlines: Having scaled back on wholesale lending,
Ratesetter finally make it to the £2 billion lent mark… ThinCats and FundingKnight
both get the green light to provide IFISAs after receiving Full Authorisation
from the FCA… LendingCrowd offer £150 Cashback

PERSONAL P2P LENDING

LOANS TO BUSINESS

Assetz
Capital

When this blog was compiled there were 73 upcoming
loans with 2 imminently due to be drawndown.

Highlighted Loan: A pub landlord from the North
East was looking to raise >£110k to purchase his public house from the
brewery. He has plans to increase turnover by offering B&B. Security was
offered via first charges over the pub and an investment property which is in
the process of being sold. A return of 7% pa was offered so as usual I would be
looking to invest in a managed account to obtain the same rate as well as
benefitting from the additional security of a Provision Fund.

Managed Accounts: The following accounts automatically
distribute funds on behalf of investors across different sections of the
platform's portfolio and are covered by a discretionary Provision Fund:

Quick Access Account (3.75% pa)

30 Day Access Account (4.25% pa)

Property Secured Investment Account (5.5% pa)

Great British Business (7% pa)

Green Energy Income Accounts (7% pa)

Crowd2Fund

Lent to Date: £4 million – latest figure available.

There were 3 auctions added to the
site in the past fortnight. As loans are listed for 30 days, only recent
additions are noted in this blog.

Highlighted Loan: Italian food wholesalers were looking to raise £60k to consolidate debt
and also to buy a new fridge. Their low Net Assets figure (less than £12k) was
a concern although their most recent profits figure was £34k. With only a
Director's Guarantee offered as security, I felt a return of 11% pa was a
little on the low side considering the risks.

Funding
Circle

Lent to Date: £2.5 billion – Funding Circle have launched their new website today.
Previously the home page reported the "Lent to Date" figure to the nearest
pound but that is now displayed to the nearest £0.5 billion. For those less nerdy
than I, the figure is much easier to digest in the new format although it does
prevent me from reporting how many millions have been raised each fortnight.

There were 8 auctions ongoing when this blog was
compiled although, as loan requests tend to fill in a matter of hours on this
site, that is not a fair reflection of throughput.

Secret Investor's Activity: This is one of the sites which I have the most
exposure to -because they have the largest number of manually selectable loans.

Below are highlights from my activity
over the past fortnight:

Highlighted Loan Invested in:

Expansion Loan of >£52k
to furniture store (C risk rating 13.5% pa return). The business wanted the
funds for a number of reasons but chiefly to increase staff and stock levels.
While financials were marginal with net assets sitting £10k below the amount
being borrowed, their website was very impressive so I decided to invest and
support this business.

Highlighted Rejected Loan:

Working Capital and Growth Loan
of £265k to electricians (C risk rating 12.5% pa return). Although there was
enough profit on the latest balance sheet to cover the loan there wasn't enough
detail about what the funds were to be used for – "The funds are required for
working capital and growth of the business." was the proposal in its entirety.

Defaulted Loans Update: Last week a
loan to a bar owner in Northern Ireland was defaulted because payments were 4
months in arrears. Their payments have been erratic for some time. Hopefully
the money will continue to come in as, according to the events listed on their
Facebook page, they are still trading. I have £43 outstanding.

This week was the first for a
long time that I had no bad debt added to my total on "Default Thursday".
During July, my annualised return on FC slipped from 7.8% to 7.5%.

Platform News: The most significant change to the website (which was unannounced) is
the Home page which has been heavily revised. The bulk of the site appears
unchanged although the fonts are different.

FundingKnight

Lent to Date: £31,485,000 – no change.

There were 0 auctions ongoing when this blog was
compiled – only 1 loan has appeared on this site in 2017. The site is planning
a relaunch in 2018.

Platform News: FundingKnight have been given the green light to offer an IFISA after
receiving Full Authorisation from the FCA even though they have no plans to
offer any further loans until the early part of next year when the re-alignment
with their sister company, the Sancus BMS Group, takes place. As this is not
currently an active platform I hope the FCA didn't delay other applicants when
processing this request.

FundingSecure

Lent to Date: £150,421,858 at the end of July – monthly
increase of £10,094,475 (7.19%).

There were 2 auctions ongoing when this blog was
compiled.

Highlighted Loan: This was a renewal of a loan to
increase the size of the extension on commercial premises in Lancashire. The
LTV was below 50% so to further chip away at my unallocated IFISA funds, I
allocated £250.

Defaults: Four more loans have been defaulted bringing my
total up to 11. Worryingly, of these, the assets relating to just two of them
are close to be sold although progress appears to be slowly being made on most
of them.

Money & Co

Lent to Date: £6 million approx. (latest available figure)

When this blog was compiled there were 0 auctions taking
place.

rebuildingsociety

Lent to Date: £11,600,000 – no change.

There were 0 active auction taking place when this
blog was compiled. Indeed, things have been very quiet at ReBS over the past 4
weeks although investors have received an email assuring them that are loans in
the pipeline.

ThinCats

There were 0 active auctions taking place when this
blog was compiled.

Platform News: ThinCats is another platform that
has been quiet over the past few weeks nonetheless they are the latest platform
to receive Full Authorisation from the FCA and plan to offer an IFISA shortly.

Invest &
Fund

Lent to Date: Over £3 million

There were 0 active auctions taking place when this
blog was compiled.

LendingCrowd

There were 3 active auctions taking place when this
blog was compiled. Lending Crowd appear to have reversed their decision to only
list auctions for 24 hours as loans are being listed for up to 10 days.
Clearly, they needed more time to fill.

Highlighted Loans: Café owner on the south coast was looking to raise >£212k to buy out
a fellow shareholder. With 115 covers, this didn't sound like a large operation
and was backed up by the financials which only had post-tax profits of £78k and
£24k net assets. No doubt the Director Guarantee and Asset Security covered the
loan but, as it appeared the borrower was new to the business, this sounded
like a loan that could quickly get into trouble. With 100 minutes of the
auction remaining, the capital requirement was only 33% funded.

Platform News: LendingCrowd have launched an August Cashback
offer. Investors will receive £150 if they lend £2,500.

ArchOver

Highlighted Loan: Marketing agency were looking to raise £200k of expansion capital as
they look to recruit staff to deliver their existing portfolio to a greater
number of clients and also to develop more products. Security was provided by a
charge over assets and accounts receivable. Insurance was provided by Coface. A
return of 7% pa was offered to investors.

Ratesetter

Ratesetter have reached the £2 billion lent mark.
They are the last of the big 3 to do so after throughput tailed off recently
because loans to wholesalers were scaled back.

Returns: Interest rates are set according to supply and demand.
They currently range from 4.1% pa to 4.6% pa depending on the length of the
investment. Compared to a fortnight ago, the lowest rate has increased by 0.7%
and the highest reduced by 0.2%. Over the past 4 weeks the lower rate, for
rolling investments, has increased by 1.5%.

Capital is covered by a Provision Fund. Ratesetter
proudly boast that no investor has lost a penny since they launched in 2010.

Lending
Works

Returns: 4.0% pa and 5.0% pa via an IFISA or standard
account for 3 and 5 year investments respectively. These rates are unchanged
from a fortnight ago.

As well as a Provision Fund to cover investor's risks,
this site also insures borrowers against redundancy, fraud, illness and
accidents making this a very fair site for all concerned.

****Disclaimer: This
blog contains the views of the Secret Investor. Your capital is at risk when
lending via all P2P Platforms. You're recommended to speak to a qualified
Independent Financial Advisor.

Comment

Choice Loans is a broker, not a lender. We will
connect you with a lender suitable for your needs or, if appropriate, a
specialist broker. We do not charge you an upfront fee but, if your application
is successful, a broker commission may be charged.